10 January 2013 11:52 PM

Iran is purring for a new and closer relationship with the US. No wonder.

I think this is what is called a slam dunk. Barack Obama has now proposed filling the
three positions in the US administration most concerned with the security of
the nation and the defence of the free world, those at State, Defence and the
CIA, by three men who have all taken up positions which can only strengthen
those who threaten the security of America and the survival of the free world.

Obama proposes to instal as Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel.
Six years ago, Senator Hagel refused to sign a letter pressing the European
Union to declare the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia, which has bombed US
targets and killed and kidnapped Americans and other westerners, a terrorist
organisation. He repeatedly voted against sanctions against Iran, opposing even
those aimed at the Iranian Revolutionary Guards which had orchestrated bomb
attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq.

He gave vent to primitive anti-Jewish conspiracy theory by
moaning that ‘the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people here’ (in Washington
DC). He has also made comments about gay people which are deemed to be ‘homophobic’.
No matter – not even this most lethal of accusations from his own support base has
deflected Obama’s intention to appoint him.

Next, Obama proposes to make John Brennan head of the CIA.
Brennan – who unlike the rest of the English-speaking world is said to refer to
Jerusalem only by its Arabic name, al Quds -- has consistently downplayed,
misunderstood and sought to appease Islamic terrorism and extremism.

In 2008, Brennan wrote in The Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science:

‘A critical step toward improved US-Iranian
relations would be for US officials to cease public Iran-bashing, a tactic that
may have served short-term domestic political interests, but that has
heretofore been wholly counterproductive to U.S. strategic interests.’

In 2010, Brennan said this about Hezbollah:

‘There is [sic] certainly the elements of Hezbollah that are
truly a concern to us what they’re doing. And what we need to do is to find
ways to diminish their influence within the organisation and to try to build up
the more moderate elements.’

Anyone ever heard of a ‘moderate’ Hezbollah member?

In another
twist, Brennan faces publicly expressed hostility from the left who claim that
he has supported the CIA’s interrogation tactics which included waterboarding –
a claim he denies. No matter – not even this visceral reaction from his own
support base has deflected Obama’s intention to appoint him.

Then there is Obama’s pick for Secretary of State John Kerry, who
came home from Vietnam a decorated war hero and then turned viciously against
the military and the exercise of American power.

Like Hagel, Kerry has been a supporter of Syria's President
Assad. In 2010, Kerry
met Assad and called Syria ‘an essential
player in bringing peace and stability to the region’. Name an enemy of
civilised values – Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Castro in Cuba – and you find Kerry
urging engagement with them or, as he did with FARC, the Colombian narco-terrorist
group, claiming they have ‘legitimate complaints’. Last year Kerry praised
Egypt’s ruler Mohamed Morsi for ‘protecting fundamental freedoms, including
women’s rights, minority rights, the right to free expression and assembly’;
shortly afterwards, Morsi assumed dictatorial powers (later modified under pressure)
and his forces were beating up opponents in the street.

These three men,
Hagel, Brennan and Kerry, are all examples of post-Vietnam demoralisation syndrome
– the deeply pessimistic belief that America cannot and should not fight to
defend its security and values anywhere in the world; that if bad people are defeated
in war only worse people will ever take their place; and that therefore the
best strategy for America is to buy them all off, pull up the drawbridge and
retreat into a self-delusional isolation.

These are
people who are the living embodiment of civilisational exhaustion and decline.
In any healthy society, they would be considered marginal, third-rate figures characterised
variously by moral spinelessness, stupidity and knuckle-dragging prejudice. Yet
not only has Obama put such people forward to manage the security of America,
at a time when Iran is racing to build
its nuclear bomb and Islamic radicals are destroying lives and freedom across
the world and making headway into the west -- in part because of the policies
of Obama himself; even more stunningly, the American liberal media, along with timid
or ideologically partisan US Jewish leaders, remain silent about these
astoundingly destructive appointments because it is Obama who is making them.

No wonder Iran is purring that it looks forward to a new and
closer relationship with the US. It thinks that now it will have a clear run to
producing its nuclear bomb -- the weapon which not only threatens genocide
against the Jewish people who these three treat with such contempt and worse,
but threatens the American people and the free world with the civilisational jihad
that this trio so obtusely refuse to acknowledge for the mortal threat to life
and liberty that it actually represents.

If these three appointments are confirmed, Obama will have removed
the last vestiges of independent thinking from his security and foreign policy
team and honed his administration to deliver his uninterrupted vision for changing
the geopolitical balance of the world. The fear is that, against the pivotal
threat of our time, this will entail failing to prevent Iran from achieving
nuclear capability while putting the screws on Israel to abandon its own
nuclear arsenal. Thus the genocidal aggressor will be empowered, while its principal
putative victim will be left defenceless --and the west will belatedly wake up
to the fact that it is in a war it cannot win.

//John Kerry,.....came home from Vietnam a decorated war hero and then turned viciously against the military and the exercise of American power//..............So he's had more experience of combat than Melanie. Perhaps he turned against the military for the best of reasons - perhaps he saw stuff in Vietnam to make him ashamed of the US military. Perhaps he concluded that the war had been an abuse of American power. Whatever. He has more right to an opinion on this than armchair generals like Melanie, who will never experience war in the raw but who urge policies of confrontation left right and centre.

Just a note, as you might no have been informed Russia is helping Israel with the oil and gas which has been found in the country and there will be a pipe line through to Turkey with gas. Fracking which will supply Israel with more oil than the middle east. China is building a rail link through Israel from Haifa through the desert. New friends for Israel.

Melanie has revealed to us that she is Jewish. Fine. No problem there. No one can decide to change their ancestry whether they be American, Israeli, British or Iranian et al but they can decide to change their religious faith if they so wish; or can they ?.
The history of religious faith is one of progressive revelation interspersed with periods of backsliding; hence the emergence of succeeding prophets down through the age's re:- Abraham, Moses, Christ and Muhammad with various others of less well known reputation adding to the font of human self knowledge in less trying times.
Pretending otherwise is simply an own goal.
Since no one has come forward to take on the works of Muhammad it is safe to assume that he was the last prophet before the return of Christ as prophesied in both the Holy Bible and the Holy Qur'an.
Therein lies the dilemma facing anyone who believes that there is more to life than life itself and that an accident of birth determines the way they should think, speak and act.

You are right Melanie, however your article will fall on deaf ears or the blind. The sole aim of Iran and Hezbollah and all the Muslim faiths is to annihilate Israel they have stated it on many occasions.

You will be pilloried for this article by the nah sayers and do gooders and those who have lost their faith in freedom through military victory and peace through superior strength of arms.

History repeats itself as ever, and the Liberals and do gooders will drive nations into slavery and subservience to stronger nations. Because they are essentially scared people who do not understand sacrifice. And do not appreciate the sacrifices that have been made for them by their forebears, and feel they (Liberals) have the answers on how to create their Utopian peace loving society, without really understanding the Human condition and the human races history in this regards.

There will always be wars, and aggressors all the Liberals do is deny sensible nations to defend effectively their own security.

It's been a long time coming, this replacement of hawks for some sensible doves, and I think you will see a positive response from all sections of the Middle East that has been torched by the covert actions of those Zionist hawks whose only interest is their blind, unconditional support of Israel, right or wrong. If China or Russia were to destabilise Western Europe in the same manner as the USA and Britain there would be western howls of rage and a new world war to counter such aggression. It is only western technological superiority in weaponry that prevents a similar response from the Eastern powers and, I suspect, the advantage will be short lived with the revival of Russian and Chinese industrial fortunes. International domination by divide and rule, to date has proved highly successful but the West's own drive towards globalism will, I'm sure, become their Achilles heel as more and more citizens of the world respond to its empowering information stream. A divide and rule strategy relies on the ignorance and poverty of the vast majorities of populations while globalisation counters that preoccupation with survival alone so America and Britain need to be warned that their instinctive colonialist mentality will become the instrument of their own downfall. So there is a New World Order in the making, but not the one the hawks desire, and the likes of Iran and Syria – our latter day ‘Assyrians’ - will be unleashed in punishment, as always.

"If these three appointments are confirmed, Obama will have removed the last vestiges of independent thinking from his security and foreign policy team ..." - for these purposes, Melanie Phillips' worldview and "independent thinking" appear to be one and the same.

Sadly, Pres. Obama represents the direction in which the West is heading. The shallow, lazy belief that negotiation (ie. horse-trading, appeasement and compromise) is the solution to any international conflict has gained widespread acceptance here. Add to this the developed world's lack of pride in its own great achievements coupled with a sentimental and paternal tolerance toward even the most brutal of third world cultures.

In our desperate craving for peace and the avoidance of aggression we surrender to (rather than condemn) that brutality which permeates the third world.

No, Melanie. Your piece is beyond silly. The only way to avoid another disastrous war in the Middle East, which would inevitably engulf Israel and sink the global economy in the process, is to engage with Iran and reach a negotiated solution, that is mutually beneficial, but which verifiably restrains the Iranian nuclear program for good.

Chuck Hagel has been brave to stand up to the powerful AIPAC-led "Jewish lobby" in Congress that thinks that confronting Iran, with threats of war and applying sanctions, is the only to "protect" Israel from a perceived threat. It is a policy that has so far failed to halt Iran's nuclear program, and makes it much harder for U.S Government to conduct diplomacy on the matter.

I suspect what you fear the most is the prospect of improved relations between Iran and America at a time when relations between Israel and America become increasingly strained over Israel's illegal settlement building activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

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